Mortal Kombat X

The spine-ripping, heart-stabbing, tooth-smashing, face-eating supernatural superkillers of Mortal Kombat will return next year in Mortal Kombat 11, announced today. The main new features in this next fighting game, as far as I can tell, are ultraviolence that's even more wince-inducing and dressing up your murderers like pretty dolls. Observe, a cinematic announcement trailer follows.

When the konsole versions of Mortal Kombat X [official site] got fancied-up earlier this year with new netcode and more (silly) DLC characters, we sat like lemons. Publishers Warner Bros. stepped away from the game, murmuring incoherently as they left. Well, better late than never. Improved netcode, bug fixes, balance tweaks, and other technical improvements are now here, as MKX's big overhaul patch launched yesterday.…

Mortal Kombat X [official site] sat bolt upright with a gasp last week, coughing up old pixels and bytes. After the spine-ripping fighting game had seemingly been abandoned in January, suddenly it had an open beta test of a big ole update. Quite how that would translated into updates or new releases was unclear, but now we know the plan. Come October, things will be…

It seemed that Warner Bros. had given up on the PC version of Mortal Kombat X [official site]. The fighting game's last DLC, adding new pugilists including the Texas Chain Saw Massacre's Leatherface and one of those there Aliums out the Alium films, was not released on PC. Nor was the new 'Mortal Kombat XL' version which brought better netcode (plus all the DLC) to…

There was much confused rejoicing earlier this month at news that the honest-to-God Alien (and also Leatherface, but whatever) was becoming a fighter in Mortal Kombat X [official site], but now there is even more confused snarling. It turns out that only the konsole I'm so sorry, console versions of the game will be receiving the Kombat Pack 2 DLC which contains the new chaps.…

They mostly come at night. Mostly. They also sometimes come when the realms align for mystical martial arts tournaments. Continuing their romp across every fictional universe, those face-hugging, chest-bursting Aliens are joining the Mortal Kombat X [official site] melee in DLC. Given that Predator is already in MKX as DLC, you'll be able to relive teenage arguments. And pit them against Leatherface. Or Jason Vorhees.…

It's all fun and games until no one loses an eye because wonky netcode stops your gouging. Mortal Kombat X [official site] is pretty wonky on PC, especially compared to the console versions, with poor performance and bugs galore. Creators NetherRealm say they're still working with PC co-devs High Voltage Software to improve it, and a big patch is due today for starters.

The first time I played Mortal Kombat [official site], Nintendo had replaced all the blood with sweat, which seems like the kind of extreme detox plan Gwyneth Paltrow might be promoting next week. Instead of actually playing the game, I spent all of my time trying to figure out how to enter the cheat code that would activate the gore and fatalities, little realising that…

Update: it's now working, though still downloading in frustrating little bits. You big sillies, WB. If you bounded down the stairs this morning keen to gruesomely murder men, you may have been disappointed. Oh no, I'm not talking about GTA V's issue (sshhh pretend you didn't read the headline or see that picture up there of two magical ninjas fighting: the joke falls apart if…

Mortal Kombat X [official site], a game about punching peoples' guts into paste, will be release on April 14th. You might think that learning how to perform all of the fatalities is the best way to prepare for the launch, and back in the day that might have been the case, but Mortal Kombat isn't just a game about pulling your opponent's spine out through…

On the one hand, this is very much "er, what?" On the other, it's a monster whose gruesome fatalities make teenage boys cheer making an appearance in a game whose gruesome fatalities make teenage boys cheer. Almost surprised it didn't happen sooner. Yes, Headcrab-faced alien hunter the Predator will be taking a break from being horribly mistreated by cinema to become a playable character in…

Here are some ideas for persistent jazz in a Mortal Kombat game: every single body part you tear out, off, or inside-out is tossed onto a big pile you can climb; sit and pose atop a ever-growing throne built from the bones you smash; swim in a pool filled with every drop of blood you've let; a vast graveyard with a headstone for every fallen…

Fighting with fans is, of course, cool as all heck, so I never understand how Mortal Kombat's fanfight lady Kitana managed to make it goofy. If the very-much-flesh-and-blood Jackie Chan can make fan fighting look so exciting and skilled, why is the unreal Kitana so boring? The answer is probably "because the other fighter is actually trying to punch her, and not only punch her…

When Mortal Kombat X's announcement talked of characters having variants which play differently, I quietly hoped the man-puncher's lightning-charged "thunder god" Raiden might get one with actual thunder powers. Perhaps he could clap loudly to stun opponents, set off car alarms to distract them, or scare dogs into panicking and biting people. A new trailer introducing the variant system with Raiden as the example shows…

Mortal Kombat sort of blew up, didn't it, in a bad way. All that violence and gore and edge got everyone excited, then the sequel put all that gore into a really very nice game, before the series exploded and showered two decades with disappointment and live-action television and so very many palette-shifted ninjas. Pleasantly that streak ended in 2011 with a solid display of…